A Cowherd in Paradise

by May Q. Wong

  Bagg Street house (boarded up after a fire). It has since been restored, 2004.

  MAY Q. WONG, MONTREAL

  Ah Dang with two of China Garden’s wait staff

  (standing on right is Ah Chiang Hoo’s son).

  UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, MONTREAL

  The China Garden Café was located in the heart of Montreal’s shopping and business area and served Chinese-Canadian food to a varied clientele. Facing Dominion Square, it was a popular lunch spot for downtown office workers and shoppers. An ad published in the October 10, 1958, issue of the Canadian Jewish Review claimed the restaurant was “very convenient for ladies to meet their friends while shopping.” At night, clients came from surrounding establishments, such as the elegant Windsor Hotel, for a quick bite before catching a movie or for a more leisurely meal after a cabaret show. The restaurant could also be booked for parties.

  The front part of the establishment was set up with large booths that could seat six people comfortably. On the wall in each booth was a small jukebox that played the latest North American hit songs. There was a dining room in the back, which could accommodate fifty to seventy people. The banquet menu had such items as war siew guy, stuffed crispy chicken. This was a rich and time-consuming dish to make, served on special occasions. It recreated a chicken, with a meat mixture that was stuffed into a whole chicken skin, then deep-fried. Ah Dang sometimes took one home for the family’s New Year’s dinner party. The restaurant also made the city’s best egg rolls and almond cookies.

  The kitchen was on the ground floor at the back of the restaurant, where it opened onto a back alley and a private parking lot. The floors were raised on a wooden platform, and two gas ranges held four or five large woks each. A set of stairs led down to the basement, to the refrigerators, coolers, and preparation room. That was also where the office was located and where the resident mousers lived. The cool dimness of the underground room was a haven in the hot, humid summers.

  The noise, from the waiters shouting orders, the whoosh of the gas flames, the clanging of metal spatulas flipping food in the metal woks, the hiss of wet fresh vegetables in hot oil, the bock ! of a sharp cleaver on wooden chopping blocks, and the shouts of cooks calling up plates of steaming hot food was a show in itself, but Montreal had more than enough entertainment.

  The restaurant was a few doors from a strip club and a number of jazz bars. By the mid-1950s, the city was at the tail end of its heyday in the Golden Era of music as the place to be for the likes of Peggy Lee, Oscar Peterson, and Frank Sinatra. Montreal was becoming known as Sin City, its bars, brothels, and strip clubs run by gangsters. Open twenty-four hours a day, the China Garden was a favourite place for midnight snacks or late-night munchies between sets. Many of the clients were Americans who thought they were immune to Canadian laws, but Ah Dang proved them wrong. He worked the night shift and saw the worst of the offenders.

  Ah Dang looked innocuous enough in his work clothes, but he was the enforcer in the restaurant. Every few weeks, he would get home late because someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to eat and run—literally, without paying for his meal. But Ah Dang would not let the culprit leave. He owned two items not normally packed by a restaurateur—a knuckle-duster and a leather sap, which he had learned to use effectively many years earlier.

  Only five feet four inches tall, with arms akimbo, holding his sap, eyes bulging with indignation, he could look fierce, like a raging pit bull terrier. He worked too hard to let anyone take advantage of him by not paying. He would block the front door and tell his colleagues in the back to call the police. Sometimes there were scuffles and he was hurt, but never seriously; he still remembered how to protect himself.

  The restaurant treated the local beat cops well, giving them free hot coffee and perhaps a meal or two; they always responded quickly. Ah Dang pressed charges when they arrived, which meant he had to go to small claims court the next morning, and this made for a long day. Although he was one of the owners, he never took an extra afternoon or evening off to make up for the court time. He did it all to be sure he got justice.

  In the mornings, he came home around the time that most other fathers would be having breakfast or leaving for work. Ah May was always at the door to greet him. Quickly bussing his scruffy cheek, she would wrap her arms around his neck for a tight hug that was the high point of his day, and he would think, It’s all worth the effort—just for this!

  • • •

  Just as Ah Dang was helped by his adoptive father and Ah Ngay Gonge to settle in Canada, he in turn assisted others. Many people were given a hand to adjust; some were even related.

  A number of single women stayed with the family before they got married. One young woman who maintained close ties was Ma Toy Yee, Ah Thloo’s eldest sister’s daughter. Ah Yee came to Montreal from Hong Kong in 1960, as a bride to Wong Chuck Min (distantly related to Ah Dang), who worked as a cook at China Garden. At twenty-two, Ah Yee was vivacious, glamorous, and great fun, and Ah May, then only five, thought she was her big sister.

  The family accompanied the newlyweds on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls, because Ah Dang had to interpret for them; neither of them spoke any English at the time. When each of their first three children was born, it was Ah Dang who took his niece to the hospital and awaited the birth, and it was Ah Thloo who taught her niece how to bathe, change, and feed her first baby.

  Back, left to right: Ah Thloo, Ah Min, and Ah Wei.

  Front, left to right: Anna, Ah Yee with Helen, and Truman, circa 1960s.

  MAY Q. WONG, MONTREAL

  By the time their fourth and last child was born, Ah Min was able to accompany his wife on his own. At first the couple shared an apartment with Ah Min’s elder brother, but the growing family needed more room, and they moved to the third-floor apartment on Bagg Street as soon as it was available. Ah Thloo and Ah Dang were surrogate grandparents for the children, a wellspring of wisdom, toys, and adventures.

  Although Ah Dang had moved away from Chinatown, he never forgot those who had stayed behind. He and Ah Thloo regularly took Ah Wei and Ah May to visit different Ah Baks, Elder Uncles, who may or may not have been actually related.

  Mostly, they lived in dark rooming houses above the stores that lined Chinatown, with rickety, dark stairways leading to rooms resembling rabbit warrens, but with less air. The men shared cooking, cleaning, and bathroom facilities. Each had a small personal space, enough for a single bed, a chair, a dresser, a small table, and shelves to hold non-perishable foods, a book or two, and perhaps some photographs. The rooms weren’t always totally contained; sometimes there were only half-walls on either side, with a cloth curtain drawn across the front of the cubicle for privacy. The men could hear their neighbours snoring, coughing, talking to visitors, snapping a newspaper, or listening to the radio. The place smelled of stale sweat, unwashed bodies, and cigarette smoke. Always, they lived alone. Their wives and families, if they had any, were in China.

  A part of Chinese etiquette was to bring siu thlem, a small gift, whenever one visited another person’s home. Usually, it was oranges. When the Wong family visited the Ah Baks, they would bring a little more, perhaps a piece of char sui, Chinese barbequed pork, or half a roast chicken, for the men’s meals that evening. Ah Dang also brought them packages of tobacco and cigarette paper.

  The men made a fuss over the children, marvelling at how big they were and telling them to be studious, and to hiang wa, listen to being told, be obedient. They missed being able to tell their own children these universal lessons.

  One very old Ah Bak lived in a laundry on St. Hubert Street, close to the city’s downtown area. Ah Dang always brought extra gifts whenever the family went to visit, which was about every three months. In a large paper bag, Ah May would see her father pack a bottle of whisky, a dozen oranges, a string of Chinese sausages, a large tin of tobacco, and a variety of cooked meats from Chinatown that would have fed their own family for a week. It wasn’t until decades later that she figured o
ut he was the Ah Ngay Gonge who had helped her father come to Montreal.

  Nor did Ah Thloo or Ah Dang forget the families they had left behind in China. Ah Dang sent money to Ah Lai and his mother. Ah Thloo’s Christian instruction taught her that forgiveness was right, and she had forgiven her mother, her brother, and his wife for the time during the war with Japan, when they had turned their backs on her. She understood that they had made a mistake in judgment then—desperate times had made them do it. She taught her children filial duty by supporting her family. Faithfully, every month, Ah Thloo sent a portion of the money she had set aside from Ah Dang’s weekly pay to purchase a bank draft from the Nanyang Commercial Bank in Hong Kong, with instructions for the dispersal of funds to her parents and other relatives. While the amounts were diminished after the deaths of her parents, she sent money to China each spring for Qing Ming, Grave Sweeping Day.

  Ah Thloo did not adhere to the traditional Chinese attitudes toward boys and girls in families. She had always considered her younger brother as part of her family, just as her married daughter was still counted as her daughter. Blood was a stronger tie than tradition. Blood transcended lapses in judgment.

  • • •

  In August 1961, Ah Lai married her high school sweetheart, Guan Haw One, following the new conventions of the People’s Republic of China. Wearing similarly plain outfits consisting of a new, homemade, button-down blouse for her and shirt for him, dark pants, and sturdy leather shoes, the couple was joined in matrimony before a government registrar. Again, following the new custom of equality between the sexes and recognizing that women were no longer chattels, Ah Lai signed the certificate using her own family name—Wong Lai Quen. It was not until a month later, after she had completed her studies, that the couple could travel back to their home villages to celebrate with Ah Ngange and her husband’s mother. At their respective homes, the couple made obeisance at the family shrines, and feasts were held, to which all the neighbours were invited. Some old conventions were hard to break. Ah Lai’s and Ah One’s first daughter was born on April 20, 1963.

  In Montreal, on April 21, 1963, Ah Thloo and her two younger children were baptized by Reverend Paul Chan and officially inducted into the Chinese Presbyterian Church. “Isn’t it funny, we used to worship inanimate things, like rocks and the tombs of ancestors!” said Ah Thloo. Although she never lost her fascination with rocks and natural things, she no longer believed they harboured spirits or represented gods. Instead, she saw God’s hand in their creation. And while she continued to send money to China for Ching Ming, to keep the grave markers from being swallowed by the surrounding vegetation, she did so as a gesture of respect for her elders, rather than as ancestor worship. After her baptism, she no longer bought and burned incense in the house. “The Church teaches us about Jesus, who died but now lives again. He is a living God. I didn’t know any better—no wonder I was so miserable before I converted.” Her faith helped her learn to forgive her parents, but she was still learning how to deal with her husband.

  Ah Lai and Ah One’s engagement photo, 1960.

  PHOTOGRAPHER’S STUDIO, CHINA

  Ah Dang was baptized into the United Church of Canada, but on March 28, 1965, he transferred to the congregation of the Chinese Presbyterian Church. He was not a particularly religious man; he hardly ever attended church services. Nevertheless, the church became the family’s spiritual and cultural centre. The children attended Chinese School on weekends and church services on Sundays. Between 1965 and 1986, Ah Thloo worked with, and later supervised, the ladies of the Women’s Missionary Society, cooking for the annual tea and bazaar fundraiser.

  In August 1963, Ah Dang bought 12014 St. Evariste Street, a two-storey duplex with an unfinished basement and underground garage, for twenty-two thousand dollars, half down. The remainder was mortgaged at 7.5 per cent till June 1, 1965. He had decided it was time to move to a newer part of town, but he hadn’t consulted much with Ah Thloo.

  The new duplex, in the French-Canadian suburb of Cartierville, was just one example of Ah Dang’s lack of communication. He had chosen it because of the fresh air and sunshine in the open fields behind the house, and because moving to the suburbs was a mark of upward mobility. One of their fellow church members and his family lived across the street. However, the liveable space in the duplex was smaller than the house on Bagg Street, and it was far away from the shopping and cultural areas frequented by Ah Thloo. As always, she adjusted.

  Before Ah Thloo came to Canada, she had thought her time here would be short. Her intention had been to deliver Ah Wei to his father and return to China when the boy became more independent. However, her plans were unexpectedly changed by the birth of their last child. Now that she was to be in the country for a bit longer, she hoped Ah Dang would discuss matters with her before making major decisions, but hope needs to be translated into communication, understanding, acquiescence, and action. All of these take practice. Their wedding night had sown a seed of ill will, and Ah Dang’s two subsequent short visits, limited as they were by the threats of war in China and the fear of expulsion from Canada, had not allowed the couple the opportunity to learn how to talk with, or listen to, each other, or to work together as a unit. Certainly, Canada’s exclusionary laws, which did not allow Ah Thloo to join her husband, had not helped their situation, forcing them to become independent of each other and to be self-sufficient. Misunderstanding and recrimination were too firmly etched in their relationship to be changed in their middle years.

  Ah Thloo’s baptism certificate—the minister used his own phonetic translation of her name.

  Guey Dang Wong’s and Tue Sue Wong’s citizenship certificates.

  [Wipe out the] Four Olds—old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits.

  —John King Fairbank, China: A New History

  TWELVE

  Dining with Premier Zhou Enlai

  AH MAY: GUANGZHOU, 1966

  Black smoke curled up from the wood-burning cookstove, choking Ah Wei and Ah May. The girl was trying, without much effect, to waft the acrid fumes out the narrow door of their uncle’s small communal kitchen with sheets of smudged, yellowed newspaper. Their mother was standing outside, keeping a lookout for the other tenants of the building who shared the cooking facility. For the past few days, since their arrival from Canada, they had been the target of the neighbours’ unabashed and blatant curiosity; they were wah kiew, overseas Chinese, from Ga-na-aie.

  The nasty smell and thick smoke were bound to draw someone’s attention, and Ah Wei and Ah May needed to complete their work and discard the evidence in secrecy. Ah Thloo’s job was to reassure anyone who came and distract them away from the kitchen. Ah May caught snatches of the prayers her mother was murmuring as she paced back and forth in front of the door.

  “Dear God, protect us from discovery. Close their prying eyes. Confound their curious ears. Stuff their nosey nostrils.”

  Ah Wei was supervising the operation. He loved playing with fire, but this was different from any other burn he had conducted. He manoeuvred the object carefully and meticulously over the flames with a pair of old iron tongs.

  A page from Ah Thloo’s homemade Chinese dictionary.

  His face, covered in black soot, was streaked with tears from the noxious fumes. Tears streamed down ten-year-old Ah May’s face as well, but hers were full of sorrow and loss. With each sizzle, crackle, and ooze, she was losing her one solid connection to the country of her birth, where their father waited for them.

  • • •

  AH DANG: MONTREAL, 1966

  “They are more Canadian than Chinese!” said Ah Dang, more and more often, with increasing distress.

  While he was proud of his younger children’s ability to navigate the Canadian world with their fluent, unaccented English, he did not want them to lose their Chinese heritage. He and Ah Thloo were afraid Ah Wei and Ah May would forget the sacrifices they, and the family in China, had made for the children to live in Canada.

&nbs
p; Whenever a letter came from Ah Lai in China, Ah Thloo sat her son and daughter down before reading it out loud. She would sob after reading each sentence to herself before translating the formal, tear-stained phrases into simpler words for the children. It was a long process and difficult for Ah Dang to witness. It made the children uncomfortable too—sometimes he caught them looking at each other over their mother’s bowed head, rolling their eyes or sighing with impatience. He had no choice then but to intervene and remind them to listen carefully and to be respectful; these were the words of their Ga Dea, Home Elder Sister.

  Ah Dang knew Ah Thloo cried each time she wrote to Ah Lai. Their church had ties to missionary workers in Asia who reported on the dangers in Communist China. His wife thought the worst, and she often blamed him for the forced separation. It was no use arguing that point—he just bit his tongue and retreated behind his newspaper.

  It took Ah Thloo many days to write a single letter, first on a sheet of regular lined paper, where words or whole sentences could be crossed out. She had a homemade dictionary, compiled of words and phrases from the newspaper or from their daughter’s eloquent letters, and she referred to it often. Ah Dang had once looked through it to find a word but had given up in frustration; it was just a jumble. There was no rhyme or reason to the book’s organization—not by origin, sound, or number of strokes. Letter writing was tedious work, but for his wife, it was a labour of pure love. After she had completed the draft, she copied the carefully chosen characters onto a blue airmail form, crying anew. The pale blue, self-sealing airmail form, made of very fine paper, would be blotched and crinkled with tears before it left the house.

  Although both parents insisted the children speak Chinese to them, neither Ah Wei nor Ah May had progressed much in learning to read and write the language. Despite their attendance at Chinese School every weekend at the church, the children could not recognize even a handful of words from their sister’s letters. It was no wonder—they always spoke English to each other. They even had the audacity to call each other by their English names of Robert and May, rather than by the appropriate honorific of Ah Goo, Elder Brother and Ah Moy, Younger Sister. Ah Dang was losing control of them, and he did not understand how that had happened.